HOLOPHONE H4 SuperMINI User Manual - page 10
H4-SuperMINI User Guide
Rising Sun Productions Ltd.
page 6
A Brief Overview of Surround Sound
Mono
In the beginning there was mono. No matter how many speakers
there were, the sound coming from each speaker was the same. In
monaural recording, the effect was as if all the sound was recorded
from the same single location, and for the most part this was how
it was recorded.
First Surround Sound: Disney’s Fantasia
In 1940, Disney introduced surround sound to cinemas with the
movie Fantasia, using three channels behind the movie screen,
with additional speakers on either side and at the rear.
Implementation was expensive, and the results were demonstrated
in only two theaters — one in New York and one in Los Angeles.
Stereo
In the 1950s, stereo recording was introduced to the mass
consumer market. Stereo is based on the premise that we have two
ears. If the sound is recorded from two sources, we get a better
image of where the sound is coming from. Through the 1960s,
stereo sound swept monaural out of the marketplace.
Quad
Throughout the seventies there were a number of experiments with
quadraphonic sound for the home market. Quad sound failed to
catch on for a variety of reasons — lack of material, high cost of
systems and lack of consumer demand.
Dolby Stereo: 4 channels
In 1970, George Lucas’s Star Wars introduced Dolby Stereo to
movie theaters, and within a few years it became the most
common audio format. Contrary to its name, Dolby Stereo can
actually deliver four sound sources, thanks to an ingenious
principle called matrixing: left, right, center and rear.
A decoder/processor "unfolds" the sound into the original 4.0
surround—left and right, center, and a single limited frequency-
range mono rear channel—while systems lacking the decoder play
back the audio as standard Stereo.